Shopping carts for use by customers in grocery stores, discount stores, hardware stores and the like have been in use for more than 40 years. For about 20 years, one widely used type of shopping cart, commonly known as an over-the-counter cart, has had an elevated frame for supporting the main lading-carrying basket just above the top of the check-out counter as the cart is pushed through the check-out station.
From the very first use of over-the-counter carts, such carts (like shopping carts of virtually every other type) have been provided with a baby seat compartment at and facing the rear of the cart, near the handle so that a parent can carry an infant or young child in the cart at the same time the cart is being used to accumulate purchases as it is pushed around the store. Such a seat is ordinarily arranged to permit an infant or young child to face the parent while sitting in the baby seat.
The walls of shopping carts in widest use are formed of an array of interconnected wire elements, and these walls define the main load or lading-carrying space. In carts having the main lading-carrying basket elevated just above the top of the check-out counter, the space defined by the walls of the basket is customarily closed off at its front end by a hinged gate that can be lowered by the check-out clerk, when desired, to provide access to the articles contained in the basket of the cart.
In the usual shopping cart that is of the over-the-counter type described and includes a baby seat, the front wall of the seat, against which the infant or young child leans when seated in the cart, is constructed so as to remain in a fixed, generally vertical position at all times. When the baby seat is unoccupied, the space defined by the seat can be used to hold articles purchased by the user of the cart, in order to augment the load-carrying capacity of the cart by that additional space. However, when the cart is pushed up to the check-out counter, the articles piled in the baby seat space are not easily accessible to the check-out clerk (who ordinarily stands at the forward end of the shopping cart in front of the cash register) because the fixed, generally vertical front wall of the baby seat interposes a barrier over which it is difficult for the check-out clerk to reach.
This disadvantage has been recognized for as long as the .[.over-the counter.]. .Iadd.over-the-counter .Iaddend.shopping carts have been used, but until applicant developed the shopping cart of this invention no one has been able to solve this problem.